If you have edited Wikipedia, you probably already know some basics, but Wiktionary does have a few conventions of its own. Please take a moment to learn our basics before jumping in.

First, all articles should be in our standard format, even if they are not yet complete. Please take a moment to familiarize yourself with it. You can use one of our pre-defined article templates by typing the name of a non-existent article into the search box and hitting 'Go'. You can link Wikipedia pages, including your user page, using [[w:pagename]], {{pedia}}, or {{wikipedia}}.

Notice that article titles are case-sensitive and are not capitalized unless, like proper nouns, they are ordinarily capitalized (Poland or January). Also, take a moment to familiarize yourself with our criteria for inclusion, since Wiktionary is not an encyclopedia. Don't go looking for a Village pump – we have a Beer parlour. Note that while Wikipedia likes redirects, Wiktionary deletes most redirects (especially spelling variations), in favor of short entries. Please do not copy entries here from Wikipedia if they are in wikipedia:Category:Copy to Wiktionary; they are moved by bot, and will appear presently in the Transwiki: namespace.

A further major caveat is that a "Citation" on Wiktionary is synonymous with a "Quotation", we use these primary sources to construct dictionary definitions from evidence of the word being used. "References" (aka "Citations" on Wikipedia) are used predominantly for verifying Etymologies and usage notes, not the definitions themselves. This is partly to avoid copyright violation, and partly to ensure that we don't fall into the trap of adding "list words", or words that while often defined are never used in practice.

Note for experienced Wikipedians:

Wiktionary is run in a very different manner from Wikipedia and you will have a better experience if you do not assume the two are similar in culture. Please remember that despite your experience on Wikipedia, that experience may not always be applicable here. While you do not need to be an expert, or anything close to one, to contribute, please be as respectful of local policies and community practices as you can. Be aware that well-meaning Wikipedians have unfortunately found themselves blocked in the past for perceived disruption due to misunderstandings. To prevent a similar outcome, remember the maxim: be bold, but don't be reckless!

Having said that, we welcome Wikipedians, who have useful skills and experience to offer. The following are a couple of the most jarring differences between our projects that Wikipedians may want to learn up front, so things go smoothly for everyone. Changing policy pages on Wiktionary is very strongly discouraged. If you think something needs changing, please discuss it at the beer parlour, after which we may formally vote on the issue. You should also note that Wiktionary has very different user-space policies, we are here to build a dictionary and your user-page exists only to facilitate that. In particular we have voted to explicitly ban all userboxes with the exception of {{Babel}}; please do not create or use them.

We hope you enjoy editing Wiktionary and being a Wiktionarian. --Connel MacKenzie 05:52, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Almost all template names on Wiktionary start with a lower case character. --Connel MacKenzie 19:37, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Huh! Kinda out of the blue, as since 2 Feb I've used no, nor imported any template here! <g>

Unless one of your admins becomes active in the template sharing project, I've enough to do without sharing duties here. In fact, with the dictionary setup, there are probably only a few dozen tools I could think of that might have a use here.

You may want to look at M:template:Interwikicat-grp and advise me if you'd care to share some of the interwiki connection benifits on nodal categories. For example: m:Category:template. Other than that, I'm sure you guys are doing fine per your cultural needs.

Please see the embedded comment below as I can't figure out exactly how to incorporate it (being an adverb) into disaster or disastrously (adv) or whether as a separate disastrousness (n); or should I say instead why the second and other forms isn't mentioned in 'disaster'. But I make no claims to being a lexicographically skilled individual, as this sort of association seems quite logical to me. (Apparently someone arbitrarily decided one day the two word derivations aren't related? Or something! <g>) Be well! // FrankB 15:33, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

That information would be added to both disaster and disastrously in a ===Derived terms=== section. The latter would include only a subset of the former. To date, most of these have simply not been added, but should be present. I've removed the above comment-section above, as a potential copyvio. --Connel MacKenzie 15:52, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

The Wikipedia "template sharing project" is flawed from the start. The "Overview" section is offensive, false and POV. The ability for you (Wikipedians) to create templates on Wikipedia does not imply that those same templates are desired (nor useful) here. --Connel MacKenzie 16:01, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

It's also essentially, a first draft, though why it's offensive beats me. Wikipedia has more template coders doing little but template work than you or other smaller projects have doing regular work. Shrug.

I'll go back over that draft--that's not being taken as it was meant. Nor is their any idea or wish to import templates willy-nilly into any sister (excepting a small set of templates used to link to 'see also' mentions on other sisters so gobs of templates need not be imported--just the one desired); merely the wish to develop a sound lay-editor friendly system of tagging with links to version check and similar categorization so to enhance productivity on the many wiki's of it's volunteer users. Why is it controversial to want to maximize effectiveness of peoples time? We all only have so much of that most precious of comodities! // FrankB 16:31, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I reverted your edit as it was not the right style for Wiktionary and was copied from elsewhere. Yours Conrad.Irwin 15:49, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up

All phrases are ultimately copied from somewhere, we all just file off the serial numbers and reissue things, so to speak

Accusing someone of plagerism without proof, is very uncool

Text search with google, before going down THAT road. What happened to good faith?

The page needs to cover that aspect... style fix as you like, but don't ignore the frickin improvement!

I've re-rv'd you... edit as you like, but cover the def. I've linked to it in several contexts in related articles inline and not-inline on en.wikipedia, generally articles pertaining to real estate which the youngsters over there were totally clueless about. As a landlord, "utilities clauses" are almost always part of leases... and so forth.

Be well... but watch the accusations! // FrankB 20:26, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

BTW-- did you get fooled by the inline comment? Then EDIT that out... not LAZILY REVERT... ANY FOOL can do that! Reverting should be the LAST RESORT forsooth. No wonder I don't care to contribute more here... the environment is hostile if you all make reversion sans inspection!

Stephen appears to have beaten me to reverting you. Please do not revert again, or you will be blocked. For starters, you seem to have missed Conrad's comments about the right style for Wiktionary, which your edit remains outside of. Finally, you cite your source. I fail to see how his accusation of copying text from others is a failure to assume good faith. You seem to be making no attempts to hide it. However, let's not get bogged down in that conversation. What's just as important in my eyes, is that the def you entered is not the type of def we want in our dictionary. Please read some of our help pages which I'll post below to get a better feel for what we do here. As for mindless reversions, I saw nothing in your edits worth keeping. Please learn more about our project before making accusations against some of our best contributors. -Atelaesλάλει ἐμοί 20:35, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

If you are unfamiliar with wiki editing, take a look at Help:How to edit a page. It is a concise list of technical guidelines to the wiki format we use here: how to, for example, make text boldfaced or create hyperlinks. Feel free to practice in the sandbox. If you would like a slower introduction we have a short tutorial.

These links may help you familiarize yourself with Wiktionary:

Entry layout explained (ELE) is a detailed policy documenting how Wiktionary pages should be formatted. All entries should conform to this standard. The easiest way to start off is to copy the contents of an existing page for a similar word, and then adapt it to fit the entry you are creating.

Our Criteria for inclusion (CFI) define exactly which words can be added to Wiktionary, though it may be a bit technical and longwinded. The most important part is that Wiktionary only accepts words that have been in somewhat widespread use over the course of at least a year, and citations that demonstrate usage can be asked for when there is doubt.

If you have anything to ask about or suggest, we have several discussion rooms. Feel free to ask any other editors in person if you have any problems or question, by posting a message on their talk page.

You are encouraged to add a BabelBox to your userpage. This shows which languages you know, so other editors know which languages you'll be working on, and what they can ask you for help with.

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wiktionarian! If you have any questions, bring them to the Wiktionary:Information desk, or ask me on my talk page. If you do so, please sign your posts with four tildes: ~~~~ which automatically produces your username and the current date and time.